YouTube

Leaked slides show YouTube’s plan to improve its podcast experience [Gallery]

Ben Schoon | Mar 30 2022 - 8:16 am PT

Recent reports have made it clear that YouTube wants a slice of the massive demand for podcast content, and it seems plans are finally coming together. A new leaked presentation offers a ton of insight into YouTube’s plan for true podcast support.

Over the past few months, YouTube’s ambitions in podcasting have slowly been uncovered. Last October, a report first revealed that YouTube was hunting for talent to manage “the millions of podcasts that already exist on the site,” which a YouTube spokesperson directly confirmed. A few months later, decade-long employee Kai Chuk was given the role of “Podcast Lead.” Earlier this month, a further report detailed that YouTube was looking to offer up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to get video versions of popular shows.

Now, PodNews has obtained what is claimed to be an 84-page presentation which is intended for podcast publishers. The presentation shows what YouTube has in store for publishers and listeners alike. This includes overhauling the “ingestion,” or uploading of podcasts to the platform. Apparently, this includes traditional RSS feeds. New “search and discovery” tools include a “podcast destination page” and “official podcast cards” in search results.

Apparently, these new efforts would live at youtube.com/podcasts, which is a page that has not yet gone public.

Going beyond that revamped experience, YouTube apparently has plans to offer “Audio Ads” for podcasts which would be Google-sold initially but would include partner-sold ads sometime this year. There’s no mention here regarding revenue split for creators, but it’s probably a safe expectation that it would work similarly to video content hosted on YouTube.

Audience analytics is also a part of YouTube’s efforts, according to the slides. YouTube would supply “new metrics for audio-first creators,” which would integrate with existing podcast attribution companies, with Nielsen, PodTrac, and now-Spotify-owned Chartable.